3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Answer: trim the base of a cheap h9 bulb and stick it on the low beam.

 

Is there an example of this

 

Google it... h9 bulb mod to fit h11 socket

 

Will do what do you recommend for the bulb is there something that’s going to be more white than the normal colored halogen bulb

 

I’ve seen those, they would be interesting to compare. However note that the Philips H9 is also about 75w, and the H9 carries nearly every bulb performance optimization, whereas a higher wattage H11 is unlikely to do so. The Nokia 75w H11s likely have slightly thicker filaments for the higher wattage while attempting to maintain life, which de-tunes focus. Something I should compare at some point though.

See post #2 in the thread, it has the info you look for. Short answer is Philips H9s are the highest performing plug and play upgrade for halogens and LEDs.

Different H9 bulbs, but the inner forward tab needs to be trimmed as shown below. You can do so with a small knife and whittle it off. Unmodified left, modified right.

How much more white? In halogens, the increase in color temp is done with blue filters to *remove* light, specifically yellow output. Because light is being removed, they will be lower performance. The Hella H9 Performance 2.0 bulbs linked in post #2 perform well, they are 3900k so the filter is not too penalizing. You cannot practically get LED white from a halogen, if wanting very high color temp like 6000k plus, see post #3, look at the Hikari Ultra LEDs which are the best I've tested. However, note that quality H9s easily outperform the Hikari LEDs.

 

Thanks for your help you have a great post. It’s just overloaded with info that it left me confused. Thanks for the quick and dirty answers to go along with it. I’m not against leds so maybe that’s the way I need to go to get the whiter light I guess to and extent I’m willing to sacrifice some output for cosmetic look

 

It's sometimes hard to find some of their bulbs. It appears that maybe eBay and Amazon are the best places to look. I couldn't find the 75w H11s or 9011s readily available, so I sent the company a message.

Maybe some interesting notes: the bulbs are manufactured in Korea. The clear Stage 2 bulbs are 75W, and their coated S2 H11s are 80W (maybe to compensate for the coating).

When I had the Tacoma, I had a couple sets of their S2 Cosmic White H4s. They had a decent lifespan, and didn't stress the wiring. Small company I suppose, but I've never been disappointed.

 

@crashnburn80 congratulations your thread is a featured in jalopnik.
"A pretty good real-world explanation of why “thoughtfully selected” halogen bulbs beat even name-brand LED retrofits."

https://jalopnik.com/why-most-led-headlight-upgrades-dont-really-work-an-ex-1843070472

 

@crashnburn80

I thought Vosla made the GM bulbs? I’m running Vosla 9012s in my C5 after my HID projector retrofit experiment failed.

 

Not bad that one of the worlds top automotive lighting experts points to a Tacoma World post as an example of good real-world lighting information. But the comments, ugh people can be soo dense. For those that do not know Stern, interviewed in that article, is one of the industries long standing top experts on automotive lighting.

Volsa makes the new ones, which are now not true HIRs. The new bulbs don't have the IR coating to overdrive the filament, they use conventional design and technologies to meet the required output spec range, which allows +/- 15% and they are a fair amount cheaper. The old AC Delcos were actual HIR 9012s with a spherical bulb shape and an IR coating to boost performance without sacrificing life.

$21 GM Genuine Parts 23342527 Low Beam Headlamp Bulb

New vs

ACDelco GM Original Equipment HIR1 (25770739) High Beam Headlight Bulb

old. I haven't done any comparison between the two, but the lighting enthusiast seek out the older design which likely has higher output and longer life. There was some interesting posts a ways back in this thread that Sylvania started making real HIRs again out of Korea that had some promising test results that might exceed the performance of the AC Delco Toshiba HIR1 bulbs.

 

Is there a technical reason standard Halogen bulbs can’t get the HIR treatment?

 

Spec. A designated bulb is only allowed a +/- 15% tolerance to be a legal bulb of a specific base. An HIR treatment would increase output too much to be legal. For an 'off road' bulb though, no, it could be done. It is relatively expensive though, I've rarely seen it done.

This link doesn't seem to work at the moment, but it is a 100w HIR spotlight spec'ing 12 million candle power:
https://www.larsonelectronics.com/p...g-terms-3-25-base-12-mil-candlepower-750-beam

 

So do I need H11s for my low beams and H9s for my high beams? And does anyone know where I can get bulbs packaged. There for 2016 TRD off road headlights.

 

Those are the stock bulb types. The H9s in your high beam are as good as you're going to get for an H9, basically

 

Are you looking for the "Off Road" lights that have the Xenon blue etc type look?

 

Are the OEM led headlights better than or on par with a HID retro fit?
Thinking of getting them if they are at least on par.

 

read first post. You will have a thorough explanation of which type is best.

 

I did, he has not tested the oem led headlights yet. So I am wondering if anyone has experience going from HIDs to the OEM led headlights.

 

OEM HID is going to be brighter than OEM LED. So if you did a build with OEM grade components like Lexus RX350 projectors, and used high quality D2S performance bulbs from Osram/Philips, there won’t be much comparison. However, there is no off the shelf product to offer that, it is a hand made custom build. The seals could leak. A complete OEM LED assembly will be a higher quality part and is really the proper way to do a headlight upgrade. Note that aftermarket H1 Morimoto type retrofits that are popular due to price and install simplicity are nowhere near the performance and quality level of OEM HIDs and are not recommended.

 

@crashnburn80 Still rocking and loving the GE Megalight +130 (on the second set now with no intention on trying anything new), but I did see the Fahren LEDs starting to gain some traction with the LED crowd on the Tacoma facebook groups, etc. I know performance wise it wouldn't be as good as the halogens talked about at length, just curious how they would stack up.

https://smile.amazon.com/Fahren-Hea...uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl